0:09

Hello and welcome to the Much loved podcast.

I'm your host, Nate Ruben.

And today I am absolutely thrilled and honored to host my good pal, Kody Troyner.

Kody, what's going on, brother?

Not the much name is excited to be here.

It's actually actually more of a joy for me than probably it is for you.

0:26

So I have A to follow this podcast.

I'm excited.

I was, you know, I'm shocked that I was asked to be on it.

Couldn't be happier to be here today.

I'm thrilled.

I'm thrilled to have a community member join the show.

For those of you who don't know, Kody is actually my financial advisor and the man who got me involved in the opportunity at Northwestern Mutual, which many of us affectionately referred to as the Biz.

0:54

So it's it's grateful to have Kody on.

And more than just being a mentor or somebody who's helped me on my personal financial path, he's a person I respect tremendously, as you'll get to know by getting to know him on this conversation.

He's a man of intense character.

1:10

He believes in working on himself and improving the lives of others.

So those are characteristics that matter to me, which is why I wanted to have you on the Much loved podcast.

So let's let's dive into it.

Nate, I'm laughing at this right now because a lot of the genesis of what started, a lot of this is stuff that I just generally picked up from you then, like, woke up one day and put a lot of the parts together.

1:29

So it's going to be really interesting.

Sure, sure.

Where I'd love to start and kind of what motivated me to ask Kody to even join join the show today is I was on Instagram a few weeks ago, I think I posted something and I tagged Kody.

1:46

And then it's probably launching of Nate Ventures, which we'll talk about at some point.

And Kody shared some really kind words about me, but also shared something that I didn't even really know about, which was that something I told him once kept him going at a really down part in his career.

2:04

So what I kind of took away is like we never know the impact we make on others and I just wanted to kind of dive into it and let Kody share his story of impact and how I was helpful and and what that's translated to in his career.

Yeah, so this is interesting.

I never knew like I guess I never shared it with you.

2:21

And I guess because we talked about so many of the things then harshly shame on me for not sharing this because I think a lot of times in life we go these long distances and we don't really know the impact we make.

And unfortunately, I think if we all started to thank each other for the things we learn from one another, the world would be a better place.

2:37

But we just don't mind, myself included, in this situation.

So this would be several years ago.

It has to be at least over five years ago.

I remember Nate, we were meeting at your house at the time, and I can remember exactly what I was wearing, exactly where you sat and exactly the tea that we drank.

3:00

So it's super vivid.

I remember like I was just coming to see what was going on in your line of works.

You know, things were going and things around me just weren't going well.

Like, part of it now is my own fault.

Part of it was my own ego.

And then part of it I just was I thought I was working harder than what I actually was.

3:17

But nonetheless, I was like, OK, I've got some accomplishments here, maybe I can just ride the coattails of that and transition to the next chapter of life.

And I was doing that to possibly give myself a get out of jail free card.

So, like, OK, let's just go hang out with Nate none the less.

3:37

And you just shared something with me.

I remember you.

Like, you're pouring this cup of tea behind me, like behind the counter and you're like, you know, code.

What I've come to realize in life, and this is not even saying anything, which is so crazy.

Every time my fear increases, I just increase faith in knowing the fact of it being that I didn't come this far just to come this far.

4:02

And I remember at that point like, that shattered me on the inside of being like, wait a minute, it's not over yet.

Like there's still more juice in the tank than what we have.

And every single time now, thank God.

It's not like I've never hit blows like that since then, knock on wood.

4:19

But I always refer back to that over in my head.

So I've used that leverage, that that thing.

Nate, I don't know.

It got to be north of 100 times since then.

Just thinking about it all the time.

I love it.

I love it because one, you went above and beyond the call so to speak as as my financial advisor.

4:39

I mean we could have just got on the phone and do a review chat, but you drove all the way to to Buffalo Grove, which was definitely out of your way.

You made sure to spend time with me, but also just how impactful that was.

I know you've given it back and shared that with others because I've seen you, I've seen you post about it.

5:00

I I really was.

Something just struck me with how many times do we help somebody, we make an impact and then we don't even get the privilege of knowing how impactful that was.

So just being able to feel that it was super, super important.

And then I remember when I called you and I told you like, hey, I'm thinking about doing something different.

5:20

The encouragement you gave me and you connected me with a bunch of people and it's just that that giving spirit I think is is huge and and super important for people who don't know.

Talk to them a little bit about what is it that you do like.

Talk about the nature of the work and and what inspires you to do it today.

5:39

Yeah.

So I always call it at this point now I think in my life the healthy obsession.

So I do work as a financial advisor.

I work with people that are usually self-employed in some way, shape or form, or even an intrapreneur inside of a company.

5:58

People that have these monster goals, people that society might think is a little bit weird, people that are hard charged, incredibly determined.

And people, when you think about that person, he or she, you think that person's a little nuts.

But I'm not batting against them.

Those are people I typically work with at all stages of the life cycle.

6:17

So when they're getting going, when they're moving and growing, and then when they finally start to hit it and go, huh, I need to work with someone because I thought differently than general society did to get me here.

I probably shouldn't be working with someone who thinks like general society does either.

So however, with a lot of people that are quote UN quote societally considered nuts, I think they're just awesome that head there and they're under appreciated.

6:40

What we do is with my obsession with planning, finding creative ways that you're not going to hear about on the Internet or someone on TikTok talking about, but very niche alleyways that we can do creative stuff that if you were working as AW2, unfortunately, we wouldn't really be able to do.

7:03

Yeah, well that's why you and I hit it off.

I think the the stage we were when we met, I already had a person who I went to for financial planning and they had written me a a whole life policy with their company and they had started the investment conversation.

7:19

But I wasn't like all in on this person.

It was just the dude I knew.

And then I met with probably three or four other people who tried to pitch me, and that's exactly what it was.

They pitched me.

What stood out about when I met you was you were more interested in getting to know my story as an entrepreneur.

7:37

Which to anybody who's in sales or anything relational, you better make sure that the person you're talking to feels like you're interested in them.

Otherwise, you're just doing it wrong.

Kody's perfect at that.

And not only did I feel like you cared, but you were more interested in me leaving the meeting feeling like I learned something from you, then feeling like I knew what I was going to be buying or what transaction was going to take place.

8:00

It was relational from the junk and that's that's everything to me.

Nate, do you remember that?

Do you remember exactly where we were when we first met?

And exactly the T-shirt you were wearing when we first met?

I know you remember the shirt.

I believe we were at a Starbucks on Lake Cook and we were introduced by Ben Wolf.

8:16

Shout out to Ben Wolf.

Yes, from my B and I group at the time.

But what was I wearing?

Two Chainz T-shirt.

Oh, love it, love.

It so yeah, that's an encounter.

I'll never forget Nate to this day, the only business owner that is ever won A2 Chainz T-shirt the first time I've met him.

8:32

So shout out, I guess.

Yes, yeah.

I had a different opinion of work attire at the time.

Although, you know, today my work attire is Lululemon.

I guess I've got, I've got the functional top for.

I came from yoga, so I'm in my yoga mode.

8:49

It's all good, I think.

Honestly, more than anything, the work attire and like how you look in Brazil, I think it carries some merit, but I think people overemphasize that to the highest extent.

Like once people know what your brain's capable of doing all of a sudden, like how they dress and what they look like is completely relevant.

9:06

I mean wear a dangly cross earring every single day and have a receding hairline I don't think it matters that much with.

Two things that are funny there.

One, I'm a big believer in dress your best.

Great energy leads to showing up in well, in the world, right.

9:22

But what my best looks like is different from day-to-day based on like what's going to give me the best energy for that day.

So some days like, I feel conflicted and constrained in a suit.

I'm like I I can't move.

I don't have my flexibility.

Like I just it might look dapper to somebody, but to me, I just feel trapped.

9:40

But when I'm in my yoga clothes and everything's flowing and like and it's it's orange and yellow and it's like the the sun, which is something I'm trying to champion lately.

So plus if you and I both know this man, like once you start putting a decent amount of Moss on a human skeletal frame, heat management becomes a big issue wearing a suit.

9:59

So you're like that just it never worked out for you have to like the backup shirt.

I've got like 4 sticks of deodorant, my backpack, my desk.

It's just it's a hard thing to manage on top of doing the the biz as well.

Well, and you?

It's funny you said that.

It becomes a heat management issue.

I love that.

As opposed to I sweat, I sweat my balls off.

10:18

I And then you said I have a receding hairline.

My wife and I have discovered I have a what I'm calling an encroaching hairline.

It appears to be adding more hair.

I don't know how, but I'm.

I'm enjoying it.

It's the red meat Works miracles.

Kidding, but kidding.

10:33

But serious.

You had something you and I both are extremely passionate about as well.

Well, I'm very much a contradiction in my diet.

I do a lot of super vegan type things because I don't eat gluten and I don't eat dairy.

But then I also eat like 4 steaks a week minimum and eat a lot of chicken and fish.

10:51

Totally.

I think balance is a lot of things in life.

I think when we speak in the absolutes of extremes, that's when it gets real dangerous in a lot of subjects.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean that's that's kind of the nature of of the work we do is how do we bring balance in the right amount of the right things as opposed to like and I know we don't talk product specific on the Internet because we have a higher standard we hold ourselves to.

11:13

But there's a very distinct way that we do our planning, which is how do you get the right amounts of the right things at the right time.

There is no one investment tool that's better than everything else in the planet.

I think that's it, Nate.

11:28

That's something I've really started.

I'm about 11 years of doing this now, and I used to think all these other places and all these other people with these monster credentials, teams, platforms and stuff like that.

We're doing these crazy intricate things that we were doing.

And then it started to be funny that most of my clientele I work with now that are newer clients that start working with me have somebody.

11:52

But what I've come to find is that like what you do experience, people will talk about stuff and they don't do it.

Or it's the lack of attention to detail.

One of the guys I study immensely is a guy named Charlie Trotter.

He's a Michelin star chef, people.

12:08

He died unfortunately at a younger age, but he had multiple Michelin star restaurants in Chicago.

The obsession to attention of detail, people don't give credit to that enough.

And I think that's what separates good from great, is the obsessive nature to detail to get you there.

12:24

Sure.

I love that.

That's a book from good to great, which I I know I've read.

I think you've probably heard of it at one point at least.

I want to totally pivot because I've been staring at this the entire time and I know there's a story behind it.

Talk about the Wonka bar.

12:41

Oh man.

All right, so let me crank this up.

So my wonderful girlfriend got this for me.

My favorite movie, the entire world is Willy Wonka and the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Gene Wilder edition exclusively.

Not any of the other remakes.

12:57

Gene Wilder only reason being love.

Gene was a great guy in general, but what that movie was is how I think.

Like he thought it's a fictitious character, but the concept still remains the same.

He thought what if, right?

Like what if I could And then that's what we I help a lot of my people think about.

13:16

It's like the big thinkers.

That's usually people I work with have these big thoughts and dreams and OK, how do we take the what if and turn them to whens and how do we do creative thinking to get there right.

The guy you know I love The Color Purple.

Two of my favorite people that ever existed. 1.

13:31

Wonka fictitious character.

The other person.

Christ.

Both them wore purple.

I like purple.

It's different.

How often do you see people wearing purple?

It's weird.

It's unique.

No one's ever wearing it.

So it it's a blend of a lot of different things, but the main part being taking what ifs and turning them into whens.

13:48

It's got a bunch of quotes in here from the movie as well that I love.

I love it.

I also love, I'd love it because I like the the symbolism of the purple.

I have my own roots and affiliations with purple.

But when you talk about Wonka and Christ, I remember being at Clemson, Dabo Sweeney, the football coach, very much a Christ centered God man, wouldn't let the team wear purple unless they earned it.

14:19

It was it was honor to wear the purple jersey and so there is special occasions where they they got to wear the purple.

That's awesome, man.

It's a royalty color.

I don't know.

I just think it's kind of cool.

Like, there's a lot of different things about purple that's unique in general.

Well, the the back story with me knowing a little bit a lot, which is probably my my claim to fame is like there's very few topics I can't talk about, but I couldn't say I can go a mile a mile deep on all of them but purple, because it's so hard to actually make the dye, to dye the fabric purple.

14:53

There weren't a lot of people who could afford purple dye.

That's why it was something that was so much of A royalty concept, random fact I picked up somewhere.

But I I think like purple was associated with the Roman Empire.

You needed to have like a some sort of extensive trading network to even get the materials to make purple dye.

15:13

Nate, I'm going to steal that from you like I've stolen other things and like, I'll give you the credit for it.

But I did not know that and that's definitely great to know.

Yeah, no.

Awesome.

You talked about Wonka and why you like him.

Talk to me a little bit about Christ.

I'm, you know, as people who know me.

I'm a yoga practicing Jew who tends to lean pretty Buddhist.

15:32

But I I personally believe anywhere you find people talking about God is usually a great place to be and I respect all paths to God.

So I'd love to learn about what Christ means to you and and kind of why he's up there with, you know, Willy Wonka.

Yeah, so one I always It's funny how you wrote, wrote, said that.

15:53

So the difference between walking Christ, one sitting in the parking lot, one guy's actually starting pitching on the mountain.

I'll leave it up to the fans and decipher which one I'm thinking of.

But yeah, man, at the end of the day, my curious obsession with everything led me to believe, like, OK, there's got to be something more than just this.

16:13

Like, if you think of, like, Eisenberg, right?

Like all these prime physicists, people that, like, we think they're purely based on science eventually started to think, like, there has to be an ingenious creator to create this.

I've had a bunch of stuff happen in life where like, that shouldn't have happened, and I will die on a hill saying the power of prayer is one of the things that we underestimate more than anything.

16:34

Like, I've got a bunch of personal stories I can share with it, but that I've got a hardcore belief into.

I like the fact that you know people that couple things all about Christ.

One that people get wrong 1/2.

I don't think Christ was white, just doesn't make any sense.

16:51

Like I always felt like in America they always paid him as like this pale white guy.

Like I don't think it's how it is guys.

Irregardless 2 fact that he hung out with like people that weren't considered like the high class individuals.

That's what I like, where it's like most of I like the fact that it's like, I'm no better than anybody.

17:09

And that guy never professed to say that he was where Sandals was a Carpenter.

Not a very glamorous lifestyle back then.

And the fact of the matter, too, like, I still enjoy some of the times, too, where I'm a big Old Testament guy.

So Nate, being of the Jewish patient knowledge was probably even way better than mine.

17:25

But the fact of being like, there's tables and stuff like that.

He'll do some Old Testament stuff, like when they're like auctioning off sheep and stuff for sacrifices, and he flips over the tables and chases everybody out with a whip.

I don't know, I kind of smile at stuff like that.

Because he's not just like this super gentle figure that people think is 100% of the time.

17:41

So that's just my thing, man.

It's like no matter how bad you were, you're always just like, hey, it's we're all the same center.

So that's my big reason for it.

Well, I love it.

I mean I I definitely understand how for some people Christ as the the you know part of the Trinity that he makes up as being you know God manifest here on earth.

18:03

God's Son totally get it and I'm I'm good with it.

Like I I believe in the idea of like being Christ centered you know having filling your heart with Christ.

I love love that you know the stories well enough to be able to point out the different types of characteristics of ways where he showed up as as a as a man as well, and not just one way or not just another way.

18:26

One of the things that I I take away most that you said is the people he showed up to.

Christ showed up to the people who needed to know God's love the most.

And at least from how I understand it, he showed up where the work was to be done.

18:43

There's a book called The Daodejing or it's spelled like Tao Tejing.

It's the fundamental text of Taoism and it's an incredible book.

I've read, read this beautiful translation of it and it has these 81 like parables or like cowans or things that are just said like little chapters.

19:05

And I like to meditate on them.

And one of them talks about like what is a fool, but essentially the wise man student.

And there's more to it.

But essentially it's like, what good would Christ be if there was no one to give the message to?

19:25

They two points this first before I forget one, my appreciation for Judaism is immense.

So I always saw all my Christian friends like you guys have to understand there is no Bible without Jewish scholars.

Impossible because Speaking of attention to detail, native you ever?

I'm not sure your knowledge is so deep and so wide on different things.

19:43

Have you ever studied how Jewish people would translate scribes back in the day?

How they would do it?

They would count the letters.

So what they would do is they'd write out the whole thing, take the original translation, count the letters out, take the copy they just did by hand, count the number, the number of letters on the translation.

20:01

If it didn't match, they'd scrap the whole thing and start off again.

Impressive to the highest degree.

So it's always like, really interesting of like, I learned a lot about faith actually through you through like, some of the Jewish community that I've actually been around.

20:18

It's kind of cool.

The other part of that is we can take the new like the generalized business, the things too, we're students and we're all fools, right?

We go through like there's the Dunning Kruger effect, right?

Which I'm sure everyone knows.

Like I think I know so much I get into this and then eventually I start to actually know it.

20:35

But I think there's another bandwidth on the Dunning Kruger effect.

Nate, I'm assuming you're you're familiar with like what that is.

I I didn't know the name for it, but as you're walking me through it and it resonates.

So I think I know everything like this is the Internet expert.

I read about it for 10 minutes.

20:51

I know everything.

Then you start studying it more and more and more, like maybe, I don't know, a whole lot.

And then you're studying and studying and studying and you're like, now I got a good grasp of it.

But the line of like work, of what we do in certain essences, we get to that part and then we go down again because you get to the real advanced stuff that you're like, wow, I didn't even know you could do.

21:13

And then what if I did this?

And then what if I did this to pair it off this?

And then what if I did this to do this?

And how it it creates this web of possibilities that people most likely never hear about except through us?

Yeah, no, you're exactly right.

21:29

There's there's like a popular Internet meme where it it's kind of shows that.

But the other way where it goes like this where it's like got the guy who's like portrayed as like maybe unintelligent and it just says like a Bitcoin only.

And then it goes up to like this and it's people talking about these new complex crypto currencies.

21:48

And then it goes back to the guy who's in like a Jedi thing and it's like Bitcoin only.

And it's like you go through the process of like, whatever.

And so, like, people will take that and apply it to whatever community they're in.

And like you start out believing something simple, you learn it's more complicated, and then eventually you return back to that level of intelligence.

22:05

As I think it's the lifelong pursuit of learning you're never going to know every anything.

Nate.

I'm not sure if I learned this from you.

I don't think I did because I would know what immediately is from Nate.

But, like, when you find peace and knowing there is no end, that's a very peaceful.

22:22

If my girlfriend was just asking about this a couple of weeks ago or last week, she's like, are you excited for one that you can, like, sell this business?

Nate, I'm sure you like Nate.

You actually sold the business.

Mine's just starting to, like, get to a point where like, I can maybe in the next five years really get a payday on this thing if I wanted to sell it.

22:38

But I thought about it like when I thought there was an end point.

I kind of get sad the closer and closer I get to it.

But when I know there is no end, all my stress and anxiety dissipates and it's immediately returned with peace of knowing, like there's no end to the suffering and the journey of this there isn't.

23:00

And in that, that's for the joy I find.

Well, there's there's a few things I I think of when you say that the 1st is this idea of like living in the moment and living one day at a time versus living with an outcome that you're dependent on.

When I was first getting sober, I have a tangible feeling.

23:17

I really have a terrible memory.

There's certain things that I couldn't tell you what happened when, how, but I remember distinctly sitting in the computer room at my parents house feeling what would it be like to never take a drink again.

23:34

And in that moment it was I can't have a drink for the rest of my life.

The weight of that, it almost felt like I was being suffocated by like a tidal wave.

It was so immense I couldn't deal with it.

And that's when I finally got what people were telling me.

23:50

Like, you don't have to quit for the rest of your life today.

You just choose not to take a drink today.

And when you know that, like the way any change works in life, it's you can do the change today and you can be the old you tomorrow and tomorrow never comes.

24:06

And I'm just going to be the best of me today.

And once that started to feel that and live that, that's when I was actually able to start making changes.

So to apply that to your business, the idea of selling it one day, it's like, oh, there's a finality to this.

Like I'm not ready for that finality, but when I'm just living this lifestyle, it's like I love the lifestyle and I'll, I'll, I find energy in it today.

24:28

Is that, is that kind of like what you're relating to?

100%, You know, it's weird, right?

Most people want to get to the end line, but fortunately you and I, you know it.

I can just talk about because I've had clients that have done it, but you know it that great.

Anytime everyone sells a business, often times like the check clears, it feels good, then you're like it's gone, it's not there anymore, man.

24:51

And so I just try to take a lot of high like I like.

I like to use my clients hindsight as my own foresight because I'm very blessed like most of my good friends are all, almost all of them are business owners.

All of them are at least 810 years older than me at a minimum.

So I get to learn a lot from them.

25:07

Like, enjoy the ride, enjoy the suffering.

Like Nate, you and I could probably sit there and joke about starting up a business when we're broke, starting it, like in a weird, sadistic way.

I almost missed that because the amount of problems you have to deal with in a given day aren't a ton.

It's just like, hey, I need to survive one more day more than anything.

25:25

Well, it's funny you say that.

I knew I was ready to sell Reuben Digital because I wasn't finding the joy a day at a time.

I was at a space of it's not as fun as it used to be.

And when I think about why there's different problems that come when you scale and I realized probably a couple years before I sold that it wasn't the business I wanted to scale.

25:48

And so kind of like, you know, in our mentoring sessions, like with Mike Lindbergh, the guy who would say this you you can have growing pains or dying pains choose which one.

And I was having dying pains.

I had the the feeling of I, I don't want to scale this any further.

How do I just continue to maintain what I've built And that's that's really hard to do and not really ideal.

26:09

And then I had so many personal things going on with the family that every time something came up I was abandoning the business to go show up for family.

I realized like, hey, this, this business is never going to love me back the same way people do.

I I can't.

I got to stop giving, you know, so much of myself to it so that that kind of let me know I was ready to move on.

26:29

But on a flip side, now that I've started up Mate Ventures in addition to what I do at NM, I'm almost back to that hungry.

Like we're building all the processes from scratch.

We're figuring out what do we do, who do we serve, how do we build the business model around it.

Kind of all that stuff that makes me my wheels turn and and really the things I'm helping my clients do.

26:48

So I I can definitely relate to that what it's like in the beginning stages being really appealing.

Nate, are you as excited on the in the Genesis stage and Nate Ventures as you were in the Genesis stage of Reuben Digital?

27:05

It's a great question.

I'm excited in different ways.

I think with Reuben Digital, it was like life honestly is not going very well.

Not how I planned, but here's this opportunity to kind of get myself back on the path and everything is new and fresh and possibilities feel endless.

27:26

So in that way, there was a really extreme amount of excitement, but there was also an extreme level of fear in that.

Like I I just haven't been fully on myself, fully self supporting as an adult.

I'm 21.

I still rely on my parents, like am I ever going to get this to a place where I can support a family Now Fast forward.

27:45

I'm 30, I have a home, I have a mortgage, I'm, I'm married, there's responsibilities.

So it's a different type of excitement and fear.

I know a lot more about what works and what doesn't.

So I have that level of excitement of like constructive, like, oh, I'm very detail excited because I know what these details are going to lead to.

28:04

And then the fears are just a little different, because the fear is like, well, now you really need to play your best game because there's higher stakes.

Totally.

I'm Nate.

I'm.

I'm so excited for you personally as a friend because I'm sitting there chuckling on myself when he talked about Nate Ventures like he's going to build it just the size.

28:24

He got to Reuben Digital in half the time.

And then I'm excited to see where it goes after that because it's just like when you know how to win once a lot of 80% of the skill, probably even north of 80%, you can transfer into other things, right?

Like we try to make these businesses another neat thing that I actually remember you telling me about.

28:42

We did you.

I can't remember.

I think you remember listening Tesla, Edison and one other person, you're like, you know what they all had in common.

It's like, no, none of them were special.

And so like we think these different businesses are all these different animals and entities and it's like, OK, if I were to strip the title off, if I were to strip, what do you guys do off of it?

29:04

80% of the stuff is going to be the same thing.

Or it's like where's the attention to detail?

Where's the follow up?

How are we bringing new people in the door?

How are we servicing them to the high standard service they should expect from us?

How are we following through in the promises we deliver if we're doing that, it's essentially half the battle already won there.

29:20

I don't care if we're making, you know, igloos out of grass where we're selling, you know, niche products that no one else has the rights to and we got the only patent.

Sure.

Well, that's so.

That goes back to what I learned from a podcast.

When the Rizzo was on Joe Rogan's podcast, he was talking about a book called Gorin No Show or That, The Book of Five Rings, and this esoteric Japanese manuscript from the 1600s about swordsmanship.

29:50

But it's not really about swordsmanship.

One of the things in it basically is how can a soldier defeat an army of 10,000?

Well, one man defeats an army of 10,000 by being so proficient with his technique that he can take on 10 soldiers at a time.

30:08

And then if he gets 10 soldiers to be as proficient as him, they could take on 100 and if they get 100 they can take on 1000.

If they get 1000, they could take on 10,000.

And the idea is that in learning to be an expert at one thing, you're actually learning how to do the 10,000 sub things it takes to do that one thing.

30:27

And now that you've learned how the real nature of mastering a thing works, you've now learned how to do all things because all doing anything is is learning to do the little things that make up that thing.

So once you've built one business, you go, oh, I know how to build businesses now I could do it again.

30:42

That's why I'm learning to play the trumpet.

It's why I paint, it's why I read, it's why I climb.

Because you can do anything.

But something someone told me is you can't do everything.

So you have to be particular about the things you give your energy to.

So that's, I don't know.

I'm going to be where Reuben Digital was, what it took eight years to get to.

31:00

I'll be in two based on income.

And that's just because what my skill set is worth today versus what it was worth a decade ago is just different.

That's so interesting.

So is that.

I wonder if it's from the 1600s, correct?

You said that that guy was talking about this.

31:17

Yeah, his name.

I think his name is Mayimoto or something like that.

He Miyasashi Mayimoto.

He he fought with two swords, a short sword and a long sword.

Whereas like most people fought with one sword that they used two hands on.

He allegedly killed 60 men in single handed combat, which is a lot in the time of the samurai.

31:34

Totally.

He reminds me of Gideon from the Old Testament.

But if you think about that, like, there's so many details inside of that, right?

Like how you do one thing, how you do everything.

So in the in the end game, we're trying to make the sharpest story.

You've learned so many things inside of it.

The reason I'm asking if it's from 1600, because it reminds me a lot of Heraclitus, who is the philosopher Nate.

31:55

There's so many of those guys from back then.

Have you ever heard of Heraclitus?

Because it's very similar what he talks about I.

Have it Tell me about.

Him.

You're talking about like how one guy, and I think this is an interesting thing too, because you can train other people and I think that reverts back down to like, who you surround yourself with, and then also to the verac.

32:11

But this point he'd shared this saying that he goes out of every hundred men that go into battle.

Nine of them shouldn't even be there.

They're merely targets. 9 of them are fighters and we're lucky to have them, But one one is the warrior and he brings us home.

32:34

And so it's like that, but in a converse way, right?

It's the same thing but in a converse way in centerism.

So I think it's just kind of cool.

Like you can learn a lot from old people and how they taught about combat because there's so many lessons to be taught inside of.

It well, and that's a couple things.

32:51

I always love when a good a good point leads to many others.

There's, which is also just the fractal nature of how my brain works.

I'm not a linear thinker which is a skill set to to be good at understanding how you think.

The movie Gladiator, that's like with Maximus, like Maximus is the warrior and they'll follow him into battle.

33:11

And there's so many of these guys who they they just die right away because they're there to take the arrows so that the the true warriors can kind of go out and finish the job.

But you also said something about wisdom and training people.

There's there's this concept that I think is universal amongst different cultures and it shows up in traditions where mentorship matters.

33:36

I first learned when I was in karate, this idea of like when you have a rank and you line up in rank, there's there's an importance to it because it allows you to look to the right and see the person who's more polished and more proficient and look to the left.

Those are the people who are looking to you to how to do the techniques.

33:53

So being sandwiched in the middle of having people to learn from and having people to be an example to is really important.

We find that same structure in a a or other 12 step tradition of I have a sponsor who walks me through the steps and then I get sober and now I can pass it forward and I can walk somebody else through the steps.

34:12

You see it at NM where you do joint work up, you know, with people who are teaching you the ropes, and then you're around for a while and now you're doing joint work down, being able to learn from people and then have people to give it away to.

That's a how you measure what you really know and B that's how you stay sharp and continue to hone the skills.

34:32

That's so impressive.

Made this the same time so true, right?

Like we learn, we teach ourselves by teaching others in a weird way.

Yeah, it's one of the things that bothers me about the yoga community right now.

I had a conversation with a buddy of mine, a new buddy of mine.

34:51

He's an Indian guy and he understands yoga for what yoga is.

A lot of people think yoga is about exercise.

Yoga is a spiritual path towards union with the world around you and and with God ultimately.

And what many of these yoga teachers today have come from is like they go to yoga class.

35:11

They get so much from it.

Like I want to teach this.

And then they they go to a yoga teacher training and maybe they've only been around yoga for a year or two and all of a sudden they're a teacher.

Whereas, like, I've been practicing on and off in classes and through meditation and and reading and for about 15 years now, and I'm a big believer that there's certain things you need to really walk the walk before you can pass it along.

35:34

And so I just, we're talking about how yoga's getting very whitewashed and a lot of teachers are stripping away the true goal of yoga and this idea of union.

So I just, I don't know, I was just kind of something that came to mind that I'm really grateful for people who take the time to to embody the practice before they try to become an expert in it.

35:56

That's an interesting Nate, that's how much of that do you just see in general society now we're softening everything to make it more palatable, right?

I mean, even the food we eat, how can we make it to where it's less perishable, easier to digest?

We're trying to take the hard part out of everything.

36:12

And I think we live in a society that's trying to expedite information and so fast and almost becomes a detriment, right?

And we don't have a lot of people sitting around here going, well hold on, what if this happens or maybe we're not thinking about this.

36:29

So I I think that's it's incredibly helpful that people want to teach, but teach when you feel ready to teach.

I have, I know actually quite a few now individuals who are social media famous that give financial advice.

36:49

This is pretty interesting for me to watch.

Their followings are much bigger than mine will ever be.

Maybe we'll see.

I actually don't want a following that big because I don't like public notoriety is not something ever want to have.

But at this point, some of the advice they're giving out, I sit back and go.

37:10

That's true.

But what's being completely negated is XY and Z.

And if you have someone that falls into one of those categories, what you just told them to do is not to their benefit, but to an extreme detriment to them.

37:28

The person giving the message is just simply trying to help.

But think we often have to be careful of the message we're giving.

I don't like to speak on stuff that's not I'm not a subject matter, subject matter expert on.

You want someone to teach how to do go do go to yoga.

37:45

I've been to two classes, not a subject matter expert.

You want to teach me how to like, I don't know, craft painting on a poster board.

Couldn't tell you a thing about it.

Not a subject matter expert, but I think people get super donning Kruger effect.

I learned about it.

I'm super excited.

I'm going to go teach people and they how many of those teachers out there are teaching people that probably are sitting or thinking.

38:05

So I was like, I actually don't know as much as I thought.

I know, but are too proud to admit it to general society.

Yeah, no, I believe you.

I had, I have a yoga teacher who we we've been taking classes with T Asia and I have been taking classes at First Descent in Arlington Heights and her name's Kateri and she's phenomenal.

38:26

She's like one of the five best yoga instructors I've ever been in the class with and I've probably taken classes with over 100 instructors at this point.

And what stands out as, like, her expertise?

We have newcomers in the class and they're asking about, hey Kateri, what's the difference between this class and this class on the calendar?

38:47

And she doesn't just give a basic two sentence description that like you might see on the calendar during class, she's calling attention to, OK, now this pose, the way we're doing it would be this type of class.

And here's why.

And maybe we're going to breathe like this.

And in a different class we might hold this pose a little differently and we breathe like that.

39:05

And then in this.

And so she's going through and basically, like annotating her class while she's leading the class.

It's just such a level of mastery of the subject she's teaching.

It's like, This is why from my very first class, I was like, this is a real teacher.

39:21

Like, I'm, I'm very grateful for you.

And it doesn't mean that I'm not grateful for other people who are newer in their journey.

Like, you have to go through that process.

There's just, there's different things you look for at different stages in your journey as a consumer or practitioner.

And I'm so grateful, but I love how you mentioned, like there's a lot of people, I'll say this very aggressively.

39:41

There's a lot of people who are full of shit online talking about certain things from a financial perspective, and one of the number ways you can tell that they're full of shit for anyone who's watching this is they're talking about very specific products, giving generalities, saying this is how it works, not telling you any of the downsides.

39:59

And the reason they're full of shit is because if they worked for a reputable firm, they wouldn't be allowed to talk about specific products and if they knew what they were doing, they would realize what Kody said.

There are so many unique situations where telling somebody this is the best thing to do and here's why, is completely not taking into the factors of their life.

40:17

So like I I constantly have clients send me videos like hey, is this true?

And I'm like, yes, but and then I give them all the disclaimers.

I need.

I'm glad you said it.

What?

I have a doctor that's become a really good friend of mine and him and I will discuss this too.

40:35

Same situation for him.

I could personally, I could Kody Troyner go on Instagram right now and start telling people like, hey, every morning I I start my morning out with a little shot of bleach.

Little shot of bleach in the morning, this little pep talk.

And in today's society, there are people that are going to buy into that like, OK, you can't sue me.

40:54

My friend who's a doctor, he's got an MD credential beardice.

Every morning I wake up, take a little shot of bleach and someone dies, you can sue him because he has the credential to therefore be having reasonable expectation of what he's Speaking of, his truth.

41:11

How crazy is that, that we live in a society where where the experts or people that are of a much better subjective knowledge are silenced to the person who's been around the block?

41:27

Not even one time.

Yeah, it's a challenge.

And at the same time, the rules in place are designed to protect people.

But sometimes when we protect people, we end up hurting them substantially.

Like I'll use the cryptocurrency industry as an example.

41:43

Largely because no financial planner is allowed to give financial advice on cryptocurrency.

There's not enough data, enough proof as a fiduciary.

As a person who has a legal and ethical obligation to act in their clients best interest, as if it were their own life and the things they would do with their own money, we can't prove why those recommendations are suitable.

42:03

So we are not allowed to give them.

Now it becomes challenging because if I'm technically illegally not able to give you a backed by my firm's opinion of something, there's going to be people in a few camps.

There's people in the one camp who say, Oh well, what good are you as a financial advisor if you can't talk about this new industry and this new cutting edge place where a lot of people have made a lot of money.

42:26

So I know enough about it to talk about that in a one to one setting, but I would never endorse something as an official stamp of approval from our our firm.

But then on the other end you get the people who go.

Well, I'm going to go look to the crypto experts and unfortunately there are no crypto experts who are qualified to give you advice and can be held responsible to any kind of standard because none of those protections exist in that industry yet.

42:56

So it's like, it's a perfect example of you know you want to learn well, then how do you actually learn well?

Unfortunately, you learn by experience, you learn by vetting, you learn by skin in the game, and a lot of times you learn very painful lessons.

And I think that's why some of these regulations are in place, but they're not perfect.

43:13

Not at all.

Hey, this is quite interesting.

I mean, we're filming this in 314 right now, you know, this is an opinion of mine.

It was just an interesting observation I took.

So I'm not pro, I'm not good or neutral.

So I and obviously from a fiduciary standpoint, I can't share any of my own crypto anything.

43:31

If I am in partaker, not a partaker or anything.

I'm I'm Switzerland right now.

But just something I saw that was kind of interesting to me couple days ago, right.

So we see this, this potential run on a bank, right?

And and this mass panic causes a ripple because we live in such a connected society right now.

43:47

We live by it and we die by it, right?

So we see one bank that's highly concentrated in one lineage.

Whoever was the regulator that was assessing their tiered capital for SCB, you deserve to be taking some time off, like permanently.

Side note.

But what often times we'd always heard was that, hey, cryptocurrency, it's it's safer than a bank.

44:07

You don't have to worry about the bank ending run up.

But then we watched that same day as we watched banks meltdown.

Cryptocurrency in general didn't really move much at all.

So the inflows of what we've always people pondered that there would be this big, you know, run to safety in a form of cryptocurrency.

44:31

It didn't happen.

Once again there there's a million reasons as to why or why not.

But just an observation I took of like, huh, this had always we actually had a live scenario where we'd always assume, right, like it's a massive, like this is a flight to safety.

But in the flight of safety, when we actually have bullets coming into us in a financial quote, UN quote, conflict of war, where did the money go?

44:53

I will say that we did see Bitcoin had pretty good movement on Monday, which this is what will start to get me about the Bitcoin community because as people know like I'm, I'm very pro Bitcoin.

I think bit there you have Bitcoin and then you have crypto and I think they're two very different things.

45:10

And I I think Michael Saylor is one of the few people who very eloquently explains some of the differences when it comes to regulatory, when it comes to things like commodities versus unregistered securities, when it comes to the ability to pump and dump or manipulate.

But to to kind of digress on Monday, we saw Bitcoin actually value go up 18% and some of what was attributed to that was this understanding that the FDIC was going to step in and take protective measures to make sure that all the the depositors were taken care of at SVB.

45:46

People said OK, this is a little bit of faith restored into our economy.

So the people who like crypto and specifically Bitcoin has actually been moving in large correlation with the greater stock market.

So it was this feeling of like OK, everything's not going to immediately collapse.

Bitcoin is a great place, but then you also had this counter narrative of, well, there's three or four other banks now who are having a huge drawdowns.

46:09

I want to go run to put my money in Bitcoin because I don't trust banks.

And so it Bitcoin has actually become a choose your own narrative story value where there's different people who put money in it for different reasons And all there's been 12 years now to test these different hypothesis of like why is Bitcoin going to be useful?

46:28

And a lot of times it fails certain tests but then passes others.

So it's become very much a choose your own story kind of thing.

Yeah, like I said, I'm, I'm just here to point out an observation I saw once again, not a subject matter expert on it.

So it's like one of the areas that I just just an observation I saw but not one enough to where I can have a strong detailed opinion like I have the information but I don't have Part 2 of I feel this way this happened because of acts in that regard so yeah I'm I'm you want to build a small bill as this challenge yourself be the best version you are intensely put yourself in suffering I'm I like that stuff a lot or reading about you know pondering the human brain that's one of my thing you know and.

47:10

I I mean part of part of what I like about my status of having different businesses is like I look at cryptocurrency almost more from a technologist in a business perspective than purely an investment perspective.

I one of the things you taught me very early on was you're going to have three piles of money.

47:29

You're going to have your home run dollars, the things that uniquely you can do to turn your time into money, which is going to be better than any investment out there.

Then you've got your aggressive dollars.

What are the things you're going to do that are going to yield a pretty good return, but there's going to be an opportunity for risk.

47:45

And then what are your safer conservative dollars, your cash or cash like equivalents?

And sometimes we can get those conservative dollars to have equity like performance with cash like risk.

And I it stuck with me and it stuck with me so much that I use it with my clients today.

48:01

I look at where things are in like the more speculative markets as potential home run opportunities.

But they have home run level of risk and they're not part of a formal investment plan to me.

They're more of, I think there might be a business to be made here.

48:18

Let me figure out what, what is there.

A lot of people would compare Bitcoin like some of the Super Bitcoin enthusiasts to like owning real estate in New York in like the 1600s.

And you know, I I get the get the reason behind that then that's when I I remind people that real estate investing is not the same as just general investing.

48:40

It's starting a business.

Like there's so many components to being a really effective real estate investor that if you're going to own property yourself, don't think of it as like, oh, I just invest in this asset class.

I've actually created a business that focuses in this specific sector, because if you want exposure to real estate, you can get exposure to real estate through your financial advisor and they can get exposure without you taking property and then you have exposure to an asset class.

49:08

But being somebody who goes out and buys land, buys property, builds buildings, whatever, that's that's a business that you're endeavouring in.

Oh, totally.

I always love the the quote, UN quote thought of passive income, of what people think passive income is.

And there's really no real passive income.

Essentially, I, you know, I one day when I have the free time, I would love to start to champion this thought of active income.

49:29

Like, that's what gets me excited, right?

So passive income is like, what can I do the least amount of effort in to give me some sort of cash return on the least amount of input and effort?

Cool, right?

There's tons of people talking about that all over the place.

That's awesome.

49:45

What I enjoy though is like there will come a point to where I will get not get bored of this, but it's like what can I do this again.

And that's why I want to do active income where it's like, OK, we got a small business out here doing XYZI go into there and I can look at and make OK, there's five or six red flags that are happening right now that they just cannot see in front of them.

50:03

Look, you basically get you guys have a sinking ship right now I'm willing to do this in one or two ways.

Either we do it as a debt buyout or I'm doing as an equity buyout.

Look, we're going to take this thing, spit it up, turn it around.

I'm going to take out an X stated profit of it.

And then afterwards, if you folks want to buy me out, that's cool.

50:23

Or I'm saying an equity partner with you for the run because to me, active income is the risk is so much greater, right?

But risk is what, right?

If I'm if I'm a subject matter expert on it, I don't see the risk the same as somebody else would, right you.

See it as opportunity.

50:39

As an opportunity, right?

Like Nate, you and I get to see so many businesses run our own businesses and see other people operate successful businesses.

So we almost have the NBA of NBAS.

I I will die on a hill saying this.

So that's where I think like the next part of my life like I've had if I try to go for some home run dollars again, I think it will be that of more of like tongue in cheek.

51:00

But like a local private equity guy that's basically in the community looking to help people without, like, getting too out of hand with it and leaving places better than I found them versus the classic, like, let's put some lipstick on a pig and send them to market.

Yeah.

No, I love it.

I mean, so I'm, I'm a member of a networking group called the Deal Exchange and it's essentially a deal flow pipeline for one of the biggest private equity firms in the country.

51:26

And what I've learned by sitting in on those meetings has been phenomenal because I'm watching somebody manage a 2 1/2 billion dollar fund, figure out like and teach the centers of influence who around business owners like, OK, what do you look out for when somebody's thinking about selling a business?

51:45

How do you find the right business in the right industry at the right time in the cycle?

Like there's so many things outside of your control as a business owner you're not even aware of.

But even things like business valuations, it was a much better time to sell your business a year and a half ago than it is today for so many reasons, unless you're in the oil and gas industry, in which case you're in one of the few industries that's actually headed up cycle.

52:10

So there's there's so many nuances that once you get into that space, I'd see you absolutely crushing it as like a local PE guy.

We'll see.

You know, God blesses me at the opportunity to do it, you know?

Hey, I welcome the next challenge.

We'll see what happens with it.

52:25

It's it's a goal of mine that every, you know, six months I get more and more fond of.

But I know it's still got a long journey left to run here before I feel like I can accurately present myself as a subject matter expert.

I just need probably another thousand reps in front of businesses before I can confident.

52:43

Like I'm pretty good at now, but I can calmly walk in and say like, hey, I know this with every part of my being.

You guys should take this deal I'm offering you.

Well, so there's there's one certification that I've been looking at as like the next thing on my list, which is a certified exit planner.

52:59

There's an institute out there that I've talked to a few people about and they've had great things to say.

I just haven't made the time to, to dive into that area yet.

But I think that's one of the credentials that would help you as well as I stand out in the work we do because so much of financial planning for a business owner has to do with, well, what does it look like when you eventually exit of the business and how do we set the business up for success to have an eventual exit.

53:26

And I think that this credential in the network of of partners in the space could be really beneficial.

Now that I've personally gone through an exit, you and I have friends who and clients who've gone through exits.

There's a lot that I've learned, but there's also a lot that I know I need to know more about.

So I think that's something that is going to be really competitive and distinct for business owners.

53:47

The point is that that as well, like when I go to sell my own practice, at a certain point I'm going to bring in an outside person, quite frankly, because this is the notion of what can you see that I can't see.

And most of the time the biggest red flags for business owners is right in front of their own face and they can't even see it.

54:06

I will admire to say I'm any different, right?

So it's the same thing of like I need someone to come in and say, hey, I don't know you, but I know how business valves operate.

We need to do this this this and this.

So that way my emotional attachment is it to it.

54:22

Because I'm sure Nate, we see this all the time Business owner.

What do you think your business worth 15,000,000.

How'd you come up with that Like, oh, I just took top line revenue the best year over the past five and I multiplied it by 7X.

Where'd you get the multiple?

Where'd you get the number from Why do you think that it's like once you hear well, I think I go that's where we get dangerous.

54:40

So I worked with.

The broker to sell my business and I went through a process of doing my own diligence in my own prep phase.

Two years before I sold my business and I had a few people make offers, but they were shit.

One guy wasn't really offering to buy my business.

54:58

He was offering for me to bring my book of business over for him to pay me as a highly compensated salesperson and essentially if a certain number of my book could convert to his model, I'd get a bonus, which he was out of work and out of business.

A year and a half later and I sold mine.

So I think that that's not to be an asshole, but it was like the fact that I could just understand and discern what he was doing in his attempt to acquire my company.

55:23

I go, OK, this guy didn't even get it, but when I went and I worked with a a business broker, he helped me get to really understand what's on the other side of the table, position it in a way where it would move.

And the reality is I was ready to be done.

And so when I finally sold the business, I know I got less than I could have it.

55:42

I've been aggressive and I really pushed for more.

Some of that is I made concessions in the valuation so that way the business acquirer would keep my employees and run the business under the model it had been as opposed to under their contract based model.

55:59

So I took a little bit of a loss because I wanted to make sure that the people who helped me build it had a future.

I mean, Nate, you and I both know karma compounds faster than money ever will, so you'll make that back tenfold.

It is what?

I would.

I would have done it again in heartbeat.

But more importantly was the time I bought myself.

56:16

I freed myself from running that business.

I got back so much spaciousness in my life, and I can see certain things with fresh eyes in a way that was infinitely valuable.

And now what I'm creating with Nate Ventures and the energy I bring in our planning work, I'm making more money in an effective, less effort kind of way that I couldn't do while I was still so very focused on that other business.

56:43

You had an interesting point there bringing energy to the table.

I finally, I work with a couple of private equity guys and other clients and I end up saying like hey, you know what's the main proposition you folks are bringing to business owners that are growing or that are got this thing grooving at 30 years in.

56:59

It was energy and I learned I had that told to me a couple years ago and I didn't really truly internalize it until probably this year when you you notice there's problems with scaling right?

57:17

And so you and I, you can talk about this even probably better than I can, right?

But I think about this going into the sewer concept, right?

I'm sitting at this one house over here on the block, right?

And I walk out in the street and there's a sewer lid.

Right.

And I got this kind of business right now.

This is, this is the first level of business right now.

57:34

It's this, it's this ranch house.

It's one bedroom, 1 bath, might be 900 square feet.

OK.

I walk out of my driveway, pop open the sewer lid, go trudge through sewage and pop up on the next side of the sewer lid in the next street.

Well, now I get out of that sewer lid.

I climb back up.

57:50

Now I walk into my house.

Now that's business level 2.

It's a 2 story house, right.

I might got a one car garage.

And so OK, cool.

This is pretty good.

And then I know, OK, I'm sitting there thinking to myself like man you're saying enough but I know if I got to get to the next house, I got to go in that sewer lid again and trudge through sewage again and folks and if you've never like there's people don't talk about knowing that lifestyle.

58:12

But until you've actually scaled a business, I don't want to hear your opinion because you and I both know, like, hey, I could scale this like you eventually get out, get out of the sewage enough times where you're sitting there, man, you got like the seven bedroom house, 7 bathrooms, 6 car garage, right?

Like things are solid.

Probably like some stupid Ivy glass sculpture inside your house.

58:30

That might be one of the things I'll buy one day.

But then I'm sitting there going, I want to grow this thing again, but do I have enough energy to open that sewer lid again?

Because life's pretty good right now, man.

Like, do I want to pop that thing open again?

58:45

And I think that's where like having like, whether it's done my way through private equity or another guy like Nate Ventures, right, their partner in saying, hey man, you don't got to charge for that sewage together.

I'm going to walk half the distance and you only got to walk half the distance.

And we both walked half the distance on the backside of that.

And coming out of the sewer lid, it's better for both of us.

59:03

And I never really understood it until I thought about it like that.

And I was like, I get it.

I get it now.

You're exactly right.

I mean, when I think about where I got Reuben Digital to and then when I started up at NMI went from really working like during COVID, my work hours went through the roof because everything was shut down and I was in a digital first business and everybody who needed digital really ratcheted up what they needed.

59:35

So I went from working about a 40 hour week to working 60 hour weeks and I work 60 hour weeks from March 2020 until about December.

And then I was closer to like 40, even maybe 36 some weeks.

And I'm looking around and I'm like, all right, there's got to be something more.

59:54

I'm ready for the next thing.

And I was ready to walk through that sewer again.

And that's when I started my training at NM and I went through all my licensing and the first period of getting my book of business running and by May.

I was working like 7080 hour weeks and that was tough and by the time I got to like August, I was ready to stop and quit and and I didn't.

1:00:18

It wasn't the answer wasn't to quit, it was we need to recalibrate and having people on the team that were helpful like my mentors, that was necessary.

And then I got finally got to a point of balance where by the next year in January, I was back to like a 45 to 50 hour work week.

1:00:36

And that's also when I was clear like hey, it's time to sell Reuben Digital and let's just focus purely on NM.

And after selling the business, I did a lot of travelling, a lot of introspection.

I was actually in Detroit filming a movie.

I was an extra with my wife for one of my best friends.

1:00:52

He was doing a movie The night that the papers got signed and the the wire hit my account.

So that was just surreal to be on set of a movie while I sold my first business.

But I digress.

And I say like that sewer metaphor is perfect because I got to a point where I'd crawled through the sewer and I was like, all right, let's let's get back to to a stasis and a stability.

1:01:16

And now I'm kind of at that turning point again with Nate Ventures in NM.

And I'm looking for who are the right people to help me get to the next step in each of these businesses where I'm not doing that 7080 hour a week through the sewer because it's just not sustainable for me anymore.

I can't, I can't operate that way.

1:01:32

Like 60 is a hard cap.

And ideally only 50 is is where I I find myself.

And there's also the same major cure.

I believe in prime working hours and I follows my Instagram account.

I'll talk about this like my first four hours, or more productive in the last like 8 hours of my day.

1:01:49

So to say, like you're working 100 hours in a given week, is the return on the time that good once you start going north of 65?

I beg to differ, right?

Because all you're doing is at over north of like, I think for me it's like 65 is when I I'm obsessed with this, right?

1:02:06

But I is even someone who's obsessed with this, right?

At 65, my brain's usually capped out.

And so at that point like, all right, is my next hour best spent scouring the practice looking for his opportunity or is it best friend of figuring out?

1:02:22

Like, where else can I challenge myself, right?

Because I'm only good in one area.

My utility of life isn't that great.

Like, I'm not.

I'm not this person I want to be.

I'm only good at one thing.

That's a flaw in running a life.

1:02:39

So I think, Nate, you're 100% correct, right?

Just because there's other people too, that I really want to be very cautious when we talk about this because I think there's probably people there.

Nate, your audience is probably pretty large.

I think there's a lot of small business owners.

They're just getting up and going in their first business that are going to take this and they're going to get too libertarian with their interpretation of this.

1:03:02

The work still has to get done.

So I think a lot of times like even for a lot of my older friends that are bigger business owners than mine is I take what they're telling me but also applying it to my own situation it's not good if you're going to start off a brand new business you got almost work like there's this guy Bedros Cooling I love he talks about work like an immigrant came from Armenia.

1:03:21

He's like, because I work 30 hours a week at this point does not give you the right, nor does it give you any excuse to say 30 hours is sufficient enough to get the plane off the ground.

You're lying to yourself and everyone around you think that that's possible.

But digressing out of that, when you get to the stage of you've been there for a while and you know the skill set and you know how this thing runs and jives and goes like that, I think after Nate, what is it Gladwell talked about after 10,000 hours, you're considered, quote UN quote, an expert.

1:03:49

I think it's more than that.

But like, I think after the 1st 10,000 hours it makes sense for most people to look up and say, OK, where am I at right now?

Like how do I start to scale back myself out of this thing?

Well, it's funny you say that, because essentially what Nate Ventures is in this current juncture is a consulting service focused on helping business owners reclaim their time and live their dream.

1:04:14

The idea behind it is what was my biggest challenge at Ruben Digital.

I got to a point where IAI got comfortable, but BI didn't necessarily surround myself with the right resources for scaling.

1:04:30

I surrounded myself with people who built a great lifestyle business together and it was awesome.

Don't get me wrong, like we had a great time when things were great, but for most of us it was just we want to have balance in our lives and live a really, really beautifully balanced life and that's that's perfect, but that you need different people around you when it's time to scale and grow differently.

1:04:53

So a perfect example is I'm working with a client right now and they're they hit a revenue mark where now they're able to start thinking about who do we add on to the team.

So we become more effective at what we need to do.

And now essentially what I'm coaching them through and consulting around is how do we create a process for identifying and onboarding the right person?

1:05:19

How do we figure out what tasks they should do?

How do we add more value to our service offerings into our clients and get more of the clients that we enjoy working with the most?

How do we take ourselves from the person who wears 7 hats in our business to the person who only wears the three most important hats?

1:05:38

And how do we delegate the rest and create scale and do it in a way where they they're a business that has more supply than they are, more demand than they can supply.

It's time to get picky and it's time to become elite.

That is where I thrive because I get to be that outside resource that maps it all out, does my part of it, and I help them figure out how do they get more energy in the process.

1:06:01

And it's I've been loving it.

Love that, Nate.

I'm just excited for you, man.

Like I I can only begin to ponder the amount of impact you're going to create for these people.

And it's almost like, in a jealous fashion, right?

Like, I wish you were.

Well, actually, you know what?

1:06:16

No, Nate, you were there when I was first starting my business, but you just didn't know you were there.

I don't think so it's kind of cool where I got essentially Nate Ventures and for free in a certain scale before Nate Ventures ever even existed in that sense.

1:06:32

So it's I guess, yeah, like I is a pseudo client, you know one, right.

I can attest it works man.

Like I'm eleven years in this thing.

I still think about the stuff I, like, observed from you to this day.

1:06:50

So yeah, man, I I am forever grateful because the amount of stuff I've learned from you.

Like, I'm sure I'll keep thinking about it later on.

And it's like, oh, actually this reminds me when Nate talked about this.

So I yeah.

And I believe in anything that you ever tell me.

Like you can tell me I'm going to go build rocket ships and be like, I don't know what Nate knows about rocket ships, but I'm not going to bet against him on it.

1:07:07

So.

Thank you.

Well, especially when you describe the people you work with.

The people who know me best definitely know I've got that right amount of crazy but would don't want to bet against.

Totally 100%, man, What else we got today on the line?

It's been awesome and I'm actually enjoying this quite a bit.

1:07:23

Oh, it's just been the highlight of a of an incredible day.

So there's one question I ask every guest and it's, you know, we've got large audiences and you never know who's listening.

If there's one person you can connect with today after this call, who would you love to be introduced to and why?

1:07:58

I would love to be introduced to someone who is me 20 years from now because what I want to know is that person learn all the stuff that I'm going to have to learn, right?

1:08:23

And I'm willing to pay any cost that I can to expedite me having to learn the actual lessons.

Like there's some lessons I have to learn the hard way, and I understand that, but there's other lessons I don't have to do that.

So if I could be essentially someone who did what I did, but he's done it for 20 years longer that has sold it, and ask them like, hey, what can you see that I can't see right now?

1:08:47

That's directly in front of my face.

That's why I would say I want to be interested.

I love that.

I think there's some people that you should meet that I know will have those answers to you.

On the private equity side, I'm sure there's some people we could talk to on the financial side.

1:09:04

It might be 20 years ahead.

But yeah, let's let's definitely chat offline.

I have a few people I think you should talk to.

Right on Nate, who can I interest you?

To oh, I love that there's somebody who whether there's someone you're working with already or somebody you know who's at a stage with their business where they know it's time to to make some adjustments to get to the next stage and they're open to that that third party coming in and chatting with them.

1:09:37

I'd love to be that person whether it's they're open to it on the the consulting side or even just the energetic perspective.

You know, one of the tools I work with for myself and my clients is this time inventory tool and it's super helpful for just seeing some things in black and white that cause a real impetus for change.

1:10:04

I have a little spark in my brain right now and I'm just going through like the mental Rolodex and it's like I'm just thinking about like because I actually sat there and really thought about this of I think I do actually have somebody I think would be very interesting but solid match at the same time.

1:10:32

I'll connect with you.

I'll find this.

But I think I think I have an idea, so I got you.

Cool.

I love it.

If there's one take away from today, what what would you say has been the the thing that either you're more conscious of today or the thing that you would want people who've been listening so far to, to take with them and they could be the same thing.

1:11:02

I think it's the enjoy not make it through the day.

It's fine.

The enjoyment in the day because there is these little things that I think I need that I always get so appreciative after I talk to you.

It's like the things that I consider to be annoyances or nuances in my day that I don't enjoy that I'm going to miss at some point.

1:11:21

And I always find it was like, I live in a life of like the big vision.

So I'm laser focused on that, like unshakable vision of this thing I'm trying to build long run.

And unfortunately that comes at the cost of negating the short run.

And so I always appreciate where it's like life's good, man, like things we think that are a big deal when you become So attention to detail, focus.

1:11:43

Is it important?

Yes.

Is it life or death Because we didn't put a comma here?

Because this wasn't done exactly on time.

How we promised?

Probably not.

So I think having the obsession of pursuit of excellence, but giving a step backwards and allowing us to appreciate the journey of excellence and knowing we're never going to get there.

1:12:07

I appreciate that, man.

I can write a whole like book of like testimony.

Like why I appreciate Nate.

Happy to put up there for Nate Metcher as well.

Thank you, brother.

I definitely will take you up when I'm fielding testimonies.

No, I love it.

It's funny.

What I've been meditating on lately has been more to be grateful for the gifts of the people who've been brought to you.

1:12:35

The more like the more time I've spent in my own just spiritual discovery gets harder and harder to quantify.

Things that are just real to me and like would have been cemented inside.

Putting them to words often times feels cheap and not not good enough.

1:12:51

But there's this, this feeling of the different layers of of who we are and of of how we fall into whatever this thing is that we call life.

And one of them, one of the core beliefs I have is that what it means to be conscious and to be alive is actually to be an individual representation of a master, unified consciousness.

1:13:17

Whether that translates to we are all children of God, whether that translates to we are all the energy of the universe's cosmos, you know, just manifest through different people.

We are distinctly individual while unmistakably part of a collective whole.

1:13:36

And they're both.

They're contradictory and they're happening at the same time.

So there's people we're going to meet that are just very unique individuals that at the same time, it's just God wearing another mask, telling us a message from a different messenger.

And it's God really just having conversations with God's self in some video game that God created.

1:13:56

Like that's kind of how I feel about life.

So to be grateful for the different characters we get to meet in our journey because they were put there for a reason, to teach us something.

Hey, that's solid.

1:14:15

What's the saying?

Life doesn't happen to us.

It happens for us.

Yeah, there's a there's a book you're going to like.

It's called The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leaders and the Thing that stands out to me from that.

1:14:32

But if you can't tell, there's always a book that I've read that there's like, one major point that stands out in.

The point from that was how leaders show up in life.

And they talk about these four different ways you can kind of be in the world, one of which is unfortunately how most people show up.

1:14:49

And it's the world is happening to me.

It's a victim mentality, this idea of like, oh, I got a flat tire, oh, I lost my job.

Oh, this thing happened.

That thing happened.

Why do these things keep happening to me as opposed to, like these things happen?

1:15:05

So that's like the one mentality is just things are happening to me.

Then there's the three different ways leaders show up.

One is things happen by me, like if something is meant to be, it's got to be done through me.

Like, I'm responsible for taking it on.

It's a very, you know, scientific approach.

1:15:24

It's the the classic Silicon Valley entrepreneur like I'm going to be the change in the world and I'm going to go set out to make it happen.

Then there's what I consider more of like a Christ, Christ conscious view of the world happens through me where I'm used as a vehicle or as a vessel for God's love and I'm just kind of going out in the world and he does things through me, like all things are possible for he who strengthens me.

1:15:48

And then there's the mindset of things happen as me, which to me feels kind of like a Buddhist concept of like there is no me.

I just show up and I do the thing and it's they're all subtle and there's times where we embody each of those 3 aspects.

1:16:06

But I love them all.

And I think that in reading that book, it'll help you kind of up level the way you're able to translate some of the things you're already doing at an innate level.

It's just it's one of the best business leadership books I've ever read.

I will read that, Nate.

1:16:23

I'm going to read that.

And then I'll trade you a book for it too.

So that's good, man.

That's awesome.

Well, I hope you have a great rest of your day.

Everybody tuned in.

If you haven't met Kody yet, you can check out his Instagram, which I think is a great source of content.

1:16:40

I'll listen here.

I'll also put his LinkedIn.

Anything else you want me to give the people, Kody?

No, man, just a thanks for listening.

Just two average guys, nobody special and folks TuneIn to listen to us.

I don't know.

So.

Just show up to do the work.

1:16:56

Although I work with you that God made all of U.S. special, it's on us to become the greatest expression of that unique person you made.

We'll have to.

If we ever do another clip on that again, I can run a whole podcast episode with you on that exact line that you just dropped.

1:17:12

So it's yeah man, that that's that's got some juice into it itself.

So great teaser towards the back on your end, Nate.

Not sure if it was intentional.

Absolutely.

We'll have to do it again.

Much love Kody and much love to everybody tuned in.